A frugal life is an easy life!

Why do we continue to waste Millions of pounds of taxpayer's money, on quangos that call themselves "Watchdogs", "Regulators", etc?
All of them are, "Standing up for the consumer" - but when it comes down to it, they are doing absolutely NOTHING for the people of Britain!

A regulator, watchdog, etc, is there for one main purpose - wether it is one person or 5000, they should step in and force the business/industry to apply the law correctly and in a timely manner.
Their existance IS NOT to "work with" companies, to establish programs/training that they can then use to avoid working within the law!

Have three examples...

OFGEM - Regulator of the Gas and Electricity industry:
Absolute rubbish!

What have they done about gas bills?
Currently Gas bills are so confusing, that the advisors of British Gas cannot even tell the customer the formula for how they work their own bills out!
The meter reading that's given - called an "estimated reading" despite most people having new accurate smart meters which we have been told for the past two years are more accurate - gives the customer no clue whatsoever about the money charged for their bill.
The meter gives a reading in what exactly?

Gas bills are based on kilowatts per hour which is calculated by each unit on meter, multiplied by a unit rate, multiplied by something for the kilowatts per hour, multiplied by something else depending on which area of the country you live in, multiplied by something else if you have an imperial meter, blah blah blah.
Throw in the variable "unit price" which has no relevance to the price you pay whatsoever.
Add to this, the complications regarding when a British Gas year starts and finishes, (Some staff say it starts in September other staff say it starts in January!) the customer has no chance at all.
OFGEM are doing nothing about this, it's costing people hard earned money as the price keeps rising.

By law, all customer statements and bills should include, at the very least, the formula used to calculate a "unit" price of used gas will cost the customer, including what percentage of each unit is tax.
At present, no prepayed British Gas statements for more than 2 million prepayment customers, include this.
OFGEM don't seem able to grasp why this is an issue!

OFGEM have published a PDF file for advice on "help with your winter fuel bills" It's a cracking read, which would be more use if you printed it off and used it as a dart board!
Here are some snippets of OFGEM wisdom from it;

• "During the winter we tend to use more electricity and gas to light and heat our homes" - We do? Wow!
• "Be energy prepared - Have your current tariff to hand" - Totally irrelevant, as bills and statements show only a unit price, this is applied to a formula (that British Gas staff do not even know and is not shown on annual statements of prepayment customers, as it's supposed to be) before an amount to pay is calculated.
• "Use price comparison services to shop around for the best price" - Who do you think pays these "services?" - The consumer pays them, via increased bills and "Deals" - For every customer a price comparison website/service manage to tempt into changing their provider, the website/service gets a commission.
  Factor in fees for joining/leaving an energy company and it works out almost just the same as remaining with your existing energy provider. A great example is when you become a duel fuel customer, British Gas cold called me the other day, (itself is an offence under consumer laws) and kindly offered me a chance to switch to them for their electricity as well as my gas, saving me a whopping "£15 a year!"
  £15 a year discount for giving them another £500 per year, NOT a good deal!
• "Use a consumer focus confidence code approved switching site" - Great, a quango recommending another quango.... pathetic!
• "Become energy efficient - by installing new heating, boilers and energy efficient devices, you can save money year after year" - Utter rubbish!
  "New boilers (energy efficient) do not save you any money by using less gas" - the words of a high up expert in British Gas' billing department.

CHARITY COMMISSION - Regulator of charities in England and Wales:
Waste of space!

"We're investigating" yet they have no details of anything that has or is being done about a complaint.
Some staff there say it takes 6 months to investigate, others say it has no time frame. At times, communicating with the charity commission is akin to gargling whilst talking to bill and ben! (IE, makes no sense whatsoever)

An individual makes a complaint about a charity, some staff say unless 3000 written complaints come in about similar actions of a charity, they will do nothing, other staff say they investigate every single complaint, so which is it?

If it's a charity acting illegally, the commission say it's a police matter.
If it's a civil matter, then it has to goto another quango or the civil courts.
If it's about how a charity fundraises, then it is the job of the fundraising service bureau, yet another quango.
£29 million a year of taxpayer's money for what?

FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN SERVICE:
You register a financial complaint, it takes months for an "Adjudicator" to pick it up. They speak to an umbrella company (That trains companies in selling financial products, who also pay a fee to the FSA and the ombudsman, so they have a vested interest in not ruling against umbrella companies of this kind) then they refuse your complaint, unless it's something extreme and blindingly obvious they shouldn't have done.
Then if you are not happy with their decision, you can say so and have it heard by an actual ombudsman, who will no doubt do the exact same thing, refuse it unless it's extreme and you have written evidence that it was mis sold for example. Which umbrella companies make sure you don't.

The problem here is that it takes what is a basic legal case, complicates it, has a vested interest in ruling against the individual, then stretches the time taken to come to a decision and increases it to, in some cases, over a year.
Then you end up bringing it before a magistrate in a small claims court anyway, which is what the ombudsman is there to help prevent.

Then there are the ombudsman's "interpretation of the law" - a case I am currently pushing through at the moment is a perfect example.
A company sold PPI insurance, insisting that the policy was taken out anyway, as it could be cancelled with 28 days notice in writing, when the customer asked clearly would there be a charge for cancelling, the salesman said "no"

When the customer came to cancel their policy, there was a charge of £30 to cancel.
This is a clear case of misrepresentation at the point of sale.
Only when it became apparent that the case for a full refund of premiums paid was being put to the ombudsman to decide, the company backed down and offered to waive the cancellation fee.

Lose a £30 cancellation fee or refund more than £300 of premiums for mis selling a PPI policy?

The adjudicating officer at the ombudsman, took more than five months (yes that's 5 MONTHS!) to refuse the complaint on the grounds that the company had offered to waive the cancellation fee! (There are other aspects to the case, this is just one of them)
So both the ombudsman and the company selling the policy now admit to a cancellation fee being applicable and that the customer was told at the point of sale that no fee was applicable.
The case has now been referred to an ombudsman, after more than a year it is still waiting to be looked at!

Now in a civil court using laws already in place, the question is quite simple. Did the company offer the policy by stating that no fee was applicable for cancellation? Clearly yes they did.
Did the company issuing the PPI policy then demand a £30 (it could be any amount) for cancellation? Yes they did, as they offered to waive the fee, once it was clear that misrepresentation was going to be put to an ombudsman.
I would expect the courts to rule that this shows the PPI was mis sold. Refund all premiums due to the individual, possible interest at 8% of total amount owed and pay court costs. Job done.

How many times has the financial ombudsman found AGAINST companies that train other companies (so called umbrella companies) about the selling of financial products on behalf of the FSA?
They refuse to tell the public as they are not subject to the freedom of information act!
Can the ombudsman tell me of another "umbrella company" that exists so I can check the individual company record online at their website?
Sadly no, it is confidential information!
The only information I was told, was that there are currently just over 600 "umbrella companies" that exist - some of them represent a handful of companies protecting them from FSA audits, others have hundreds of companies paying them a fee, to protect them from FSA audit and provide a barrier between being held to account for the way they sell financial products and the customer.

There are many other "regulators" that can be included.
Consumer direct, who filter calls to trading standards, who half the time do not even phone the individual back!
Consumer focus, who duplicate much of what consumer direct does.
All being paid for by our taxation!

Unless a regulator or watchdog, etc, provide enforcement of laws on behalf of one or more customers, then they should be scrapped.
The message is clear - Do the job you were brought in to do, or close down and pass that funding to some other body/the courts to do the job instead.

A few months after picking up our used peugeot 307 (Diesel) whilst driving, the car started to register an "Anti pollution fault" on the interior screen, with a loss of power for a few seconds, then the power would come back on, without the need to stop.

Once the anti pollution message had gone from the screen, one of a few things would happen.

• Passenger airbag would disable and light up on the dashboard
• Engine management light on the dashboard would come on
• All readings on the dashboard would go off and all the lights on the dashboard would start flashing, the speedo, fuel gauge, rev counter, would all go to zero, for about 20 seconds, then all would come back on and the passenger airbag would light up permanently

Once any one of these things happened, all the rear lights would start to play up. Brake lights would stay on permanently, then they would flicker, etc.
The boot door stopped locking, when ever all the doors were closed, the boot door would click and open again without the need for the handle to be used. Locking all doors then closing the boot would finally get it to close and lock.
On rare occasions, the accelerator pedal would lose all power with the engine on tick-over only.
Turning the engine off whilst parked for a few minutes then restarting the engine always rectified the faults, until the "anti pollution fault" message came on again.
It could be 50 miles down the road, it could be 2 miles, completely random.

You really couldn't make it up, I read peugeot websites/forums, googled questions about the peugeot 307, etc, all with no solution to the problem. We even paid auto electricians investigate.
As the anti pollution fault seemed to be the start of the problems, so my first plan of attack was good old redex. For about 3 tanks of diesel once added to fuel tank, this seemed to make things a little better, still the problem persisted.
Next, I changed all the bulbs in the rear lights, no joy there.
Next plan of attack was to have the fuel lines blown out. I was told that there are two fuel pumps on the peugeot 307s, one that works on low gears then switches to the other fuel pump for higher gears. I still don't know if this is true, but it was suggested that sometimes the higher gear fuel pump leaves tiny iron filings in the fuel lines.

Anti pollution fault was causing so much grief that we even started looking around to buy a different car. Once in a supermarket car park, I locked the car up and it turned the stereo of the peugeot next to us off.
The gent asked us to open and close the car again and sure enough it turned his factory fit radio off!

The fault was solved by a complete fluke.
On a drive up north, as I came off the good old A1, I heard a rattling noise. I pulled over to see the silencer/back box of the suspension hanging down tapping against the floor.
The RAC took off the back box, it had snapped just before it, on the mid pipe. I drove the car another 130 miles back without a problem, as the car goes into "Economy mode" actaully saving diesel on what it was using with the full suspension attached!
The peugeot 307 doesn't have clamps holding the exhaust system up, it is attached to the car via two rubber mounts. Welded rods on the back box push into these mounts. The side facing mount/bung had broken.

This revealed that where the pipe had come away had been corroded and with the corrosion facing the underside of the car, it was impossible to spot.
£40 outlay for a new mid pipe section and a new rubber bung later, we now considered with some urgency, selling the car and buying one "that works"

I drove out from the exhaust centre with a long trip to Liverpool due that afternoon.
The anti pollution fault? Gone!
The fault with the lights and the boot not closing etc, gone!
The engine management lights, the dashboard knocking off, the airbags deactivating, all appear to have gone! *Touch wood*

So if you have the "anti pollution fault" and various electrical faults on your peugeot 307, before you do anything else, get a garage to remove your exhaust from it's rubber bungs and check the underside, car facing part of your exhaust!

Chances are your exhaust is corroded somewhere and it is sucking in air causing the fault!

Chances of an easy day today, nil!

Bro's car broken so late night drive last night was a 230 mile round trip to pick him up. Got to Sunderland turn off of a1 and my exhaust fell off.
30 minutes later and contractor for RAC pulled off back box and said it was ready to drive off.
Who'd have thought a pug 307 had an "economy mode"

Drove better without a back box on it I reckon, certainly did ok on diesel.
Finally got home at 3.40am, managed to grab some shut eye, up at 8am to try and catch an early slot at the exhaust centre... will cost me £50, hope they can fix it whilst I'm there and there isn't a big queue to get it in?

Need to get back with sprog2, so I can get her fed. What will be the odds on her having a dump whilst we are at the garage... 2-1 on is my wager.

Need to be in Liverpool by 5pm - footy night. Hope Jay Spearing gets a game/goal.
Inbetween all this, I've got a carpet to lay - no chance - and feeding of the clan here.
Once again, it is a wonderful sunny day in Lancashire, I hope it's shining where you are too.

Case summary:
- A charity post a clothing collection bag (ignoring a clear notice not to post bags/flyers through my letterbox), I return it to the agent, who then throws it in my garden when I have gone back inside the house.
- I rang my local council to ask what can be done, the council inform me that the charity (and it's collection partner company) do not have a license to make collections.
- I then rang the charity itself, who told me that they agree 100% with my complaint, as "it doesn't put our charity in a good light" - I am told that a meeting is planned that day with the owner of the collection company and this matter will be raised with him and the collection will not go ahead.
- The next day, the charity's van drives down our street looking for bags to collect, I note down the registration and ring the charity again. The same lady at the charity confirms that the van is not one of the collection company's vans, but their own van doing the unlicensed collection.
- The police stop the van and issue the driver a warning about posting bags through letterboxes, whilst the council's licensing officer is out around the area trying to catch the charity van in the act of an unlicensed, illegal collection.
- Via this website, people have been kindly posting that collections are taking place all over the country, by the same charity. In the area next to mine, I am told that just days later, another unlicensed collection by the same charity is taking place.
- In a later development, the charity instruct a solicitor to act. The solicitor tries to obtain my own personal details via a third party, against the Data Protection Act. This attempt fails, as does the solicitor's attempts to have frugal ways website closed down, both permanently and/or whilst the charity's complaint is investigated.

This is how the Charity commission fail to act:

- I rang them to register a complaint and am told, "Unless we receive around 3000 complaints of the same thing from the same charity it's highly unlikely that any action will be taken"
- A complaint in writing is sent to the charity commission.
- Weeks later, I receive the following email from the charity commission's "compliance investigations unit, Liverpool"

"Although it is some weeks since you sent this to the Charity Commission, I would like to assure you that your concerns have been brought to the attention of the Commissions Compliance team about the manner in which the charity is operating.  We have received a number of complaints about this charity and are currently in the process of looking into these matters.  Part of the our role is to evaluate causes for concern, and if substantiated, ensure they are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees."

This was last month, so yesterday, via twitter @chtycommission I asked if there was any progress on their investigations into unlicensed, illegal doorstep collections by charities and in charity's names.
The commission replied, "See FRSB website who mostly handle charity fundraising complaints. If its not a charity & claims 2 b, tell trading standards." (The fundraising standards board website can be seen when clicking on this link)

So it appears that now the Charity commission are not investigating what their own "compliance investigation unit" are telling people they do?
I asked why I was being referred to another public body when the charity commission themselves state they were investigating?
They pointed me to read their - Approach and regulation page on the commission's website

The Charity Commission need to provide action or answers on the following:

* The charity concerned have admitted collecting without a license. The charity also stated that it was their collection company partners (a private company) that were carrying out the collections, when it was not - Why does the commission need "3000 similar complaints" before it will even investigate?
Would a quick phone call to the charity concerned, myself, my local council's licensing officer, our local police, not confirm this to be the case?

* Ignoring a complaint is one thing, but telling the person complaining that the commission is investigating and then telling them a month later, that it is not something they would investigate, really isn't good enough.
The Charity Commission are responsible in this case, and here's why (I have made bold, parts I think are relevant):

"Our aim is to provide the best possible regulation of charities to increase their effectiveness and levels of public confidence in them"
"We also follow the principles of best regulatory practice, ensuring our actions are proportionate, accountable, consistent, transparent and targeted" (Source: Charity commission website "Approach to regulation" page)

"The Policy and Effectiveness Directorate develops the policies and plans that ensure that the Commission is an effective, efficient and modern regulator [continued...] The Directorate also includes the Corporate Affairs team who communicate and engage with the sector, the media, parliamentarians and the public to make sure public trust and confidence in charities remains high."

"Legal and Compliance Directorate - Our Compliance Directorate proactively identifies and investigates allegations of abuse in charities, taking firm and robust action where allegations of misuse or maladministration are found."
"Alongside ensuring charities comply with their legal requirements, our Compliance teams also work with individual charities to help them rectify mistakes and put robust systems in place to ensure problems don’t reoccur" (Source: Charity commision website "Careers" page)

Some of the "Careers" available with the Charity commission include:

* "Case Officers who assess complaints and carry out compliance visits to charities"
* "Specialist Officers dealing with areas such as resolving disputes in charities, fundraising abuse and governance problems"
* "Outreach Officers working with the sector to prevent abuse taking place in the first place"
* "Legal Advisers providing specialist advice on legal compliance, policy work and running litigation cases"

The Charity commission also have, "The Charity Information team ensures that charities are transparent to their beneficiaries, donors, and the wider public"

I would suggest that I have more than proven my case that the Charity commission should act upon an admitted unlicensed collection, with immediate effect.
The Charity commission will receive £29 Million pounds of taxpayer's money to fund their work in 2011/2012.
I would ask the commission why it passes complaints to other public bodies?
I would ask the commission why it is not "transparent" and is not concerned with unlicensed, illegal doorstep collections by charities and by collection companies (making huge profits) using a charity's name?

Above all, I would ask the commission why it will not do the job it's own website/documentation/careers information states that it should be and is, doing?

You can add to and keep up with our discussions on this issue and others on twitter @frugal_ways

UPDATE:

The Charity commission's twitter team have now read this post, their response;

* Sending complaints about fundraising to a totally seperate taxpayer funded body - No comment
* What action is being taken (In general) regarding illegal, unlicensed clothing collections? - No comment
* Why does it take "Around 3000 complaints" to be reported before an investigation is started? - No comment
* Case officers, specialist officers, outreach officers, legal advisers, all employed by the Charity commission, why have they not done anything about this problem? - No comment

I rang the Charity commission this morning, they have just returned my call.

The issue of unlicensed doorstep clothing collections is draining resources at local level.
The police's time, council licensing officers, councillors themselves, trading standards staff (all over the country), even refuse collectors and contributing to landfill, all of which YOU pay for through your taxes.
This issue I am told by the Charity commission, is being dealt with, although the investigating officer couldn't give me any details as to wether the commission had been in touch with the charity, or what action had been taken, just assurances.

I have to say, I'm inclined not to believe them. The reason is, that since my complaint these collections are still happening all over the country.
Surely if the regulator had got involved and had discussions with the trustees of the charity that was collecting illegally, then they would be stopped or licenses would be applied for, before anymore collections took place?

After being told that clothing companies collect on behalf of the charities, I stopped that excuse in its tracks, as here we have a clear case of the charity themselves admitting it was their own van collecting without a license.

Next I questioned how the commission was "transparent" when it wouldn't give me any information about the procedures and what had been done so far?

The investigating officer then suggested that it wasn't always part of the commission's remit with regard to clothing collections.... so why are the charity commission a regulator and why do they pay thousands of pounds to employ staff to do just that (as listed on their website)?

Then it was suggested that if the collections are illegal, then it's a police matter.
The police refer me to the council, the council inform me they can only bring a civil action, the licensing officer puts a civil action to the council, but finances dictate that action is not taken, which would cost more money from local council funding.
The regulator should be acting in this case and others. It is not.
I questioned why taxpayer's are paying out £29 Million pounds this year for a charity regulator that is doing nothing?

I was then informed that in this case, what I had told the investigating officer wasn't all in the written complaint made to the commission.
It was agreed that I would write to them once again with the details.

If you have received any charity clothing collection bags or flyers through your door, here is the following action you can take:

• Ring your local council, ask for your licensing office and ask if the charity/clothing collection company have a license to carry out doorstep collections
• If they do, then the issue of clothing collections excessive profits should be raised with your local councillor, ask why the license was granted when the charity receive very little of the money generated by the collection.
• If they don't have a license, then contact the Charity commission in writing, via their website, registering a complaint.

As the charity commission officer told me, the "collecting evidence stage takes about 6 months" - the more the public raise this issue, the sooner the regulator/charity commission will get off its backside and actually DO something about it!

UPDATE 2:

Whilst preparing to place a freedom of information act request with the Charity commission, I came across information already published under the FOI act, which makes a mockery of the Charity commission's claims to myself, made today, by their investigating officer, that gathering information for a case takes 6 months.

"3. Where the Commission considers it necessary to exercise its own
powers, by conducting a formal inquiry into a charity's activities or
administration, there is no set timescale involved. Each such Inquiry
is conducted for however long is required to complete it, each is
conducted on a case by case basis dependent on the specific
circumstances and nature of concern involved" (Source: Charity commission freedom of information act response, 10th December 2010)

From the same response, the Charity commission's reply states, "Where allegations of criminal activity are involved, these should be
reported to the Police rather than the Commission"
Also from the same response, the Charity commission states, "Our role as Regulator does not extend to mediating or investigating what are Civil matters, falling to the Courts where they can not be resolved between the parties concerned"

Which leaves just one question of the Charity commission - £29 Million pounds of funding this year, the Charity commission DO NOT deal with criminal matters, they also DO NOT deal with civil matters, exactly what do the charity commission deal with/regulate over?

I have been making enquiries into flight prices, travelling to the USA.

Many "cheap" flights websites are quoting prices that are not available, they are also quoting prices that are "excluding taxes and fees" - which since 2008 under european law has been illegal for airlines to do!

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that there is no law regarding taxes and fees and how much airlines, travel agents, etc, can charge you!

For example, companies were quoting me £350 for taxes and fees yesterday, for flights to America. Many told me that this was down to air passenger duty and fuel duty being applicable.
So, straight from revenue and customs, have some facts about air passenger duty:

• Air passenger duty is only applicable when you leave the UK
• Air passenger duty is not charged for your returning flights
• Air passenger duty rates can be found on the revenue and customs website here, take a look at section 2.1.2
• Air passenger duty is charged for USA at band B rates, which ranges between £60 to £120 depending on which class of seat you occupy

So where exactly the travel agents get £350 from is anyone's guess.
ALWAYS ask for a breakdown of the taxes they are charging you BEFORE you buy!

Revenue and Customs tell me, that the air passenger duty is charged to the airline and some airlines do not pass this on to customers - although I've yet to find one that doesn't pass the cost on - different airlines charge different levels.

US Airways charges just £113 for air passenger duty and taxes on their flights to America, Lufthansa charge £368 tax for their flights to America.

A good explanation of what airline taxes and fees are made up of, can be found here, on the Civil Aviation Authority's website.